Democracy is as democracy does. Democracy has been implemented in diverse ways in many countries. The ideal democracy is where the people are given as many feedback mechanisms as possible to influence the rulers. Finland has taken one step towards the ideal democracy by its new initiative. Open Ministry is an initiative by a NGO which allows citizens to form new laws and introduce into the parliament. The initiative started in March 2012 when the laws introduced by citizens have to be backed up signatures from at least 50,000 people. The only eligibility of being a signatory is that he/she should be a registered voter in Finland. In October 1, 2012, the Open Ministry started its Crowd Sourcing Online Platform which allow people to gather electronic signatures from people. This will help new laws initiated from bottom-up to reach as many people as possible in a very low cost. The online platform also allows signatories to suggest changes in the laws, comment, debate laws or even introduce competing laws.
On the government side, The Finland parliament passed the Citizens Initiative Act recently which legitimizes Open Ministry as a platform to introduce new laws into parliament.
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